Industrial equipment to fry poultry is designed for birds weighing about three (3) to about four (4) pounds (about 1.3 kilograms to about 1.8 kilograms). Unfortunately, there are too few birds in this weight range to meet the retailers' increased sales demands. To provide for this increased sales demand, poultry producers are using their supply of poultry weighing between about five (5) and about nine (9) pounds (about 2.3 kilograms to about 4.1 kilograms). However, the resulting cuts of poultry are too large for the fryers, and the cut pieces are unrecognizable to the consumer.
The consuming public is reluctant to buy an end-item poultry product not having the recognizability of a familiar cut. If the cut does not look right, the consumer is often dissatisfied with the product they received. A breast piece must appear as a breast piece and a thigh piece must appear as a thigh piece.
Similarly, packaged poultry in the market must also be presented with cuts that are recognizable to the consumer. Although boneless products have greater latitude for appearance, the aforementioned problems are applicable to both “bone-in” and “boneless” types of cuts.
Therefore, there is a need for new approaches to cutting bigger poultry so that the pieces are sized for use in existing equipment, and for those pieces to retain the appearance of traditional poultry cuts.